Assignment 2: What is Good Design?

"What is Good Design?"

  This is one of the questions which made me to start minor in design. I tried to find out the answer for this question because my final dream is to found a global culture platform company which is good for myself, workers, customers, and world (I was quite surprised because writer mentioned about this virtue similarly). For this objective, I had to know what is good design, because design is really important as much as managing and developing technologies.

  So, what is good design? In logic, to define what is good, there has to be criteria to determine what is good. Therefore if I could define what is the criteria to determine what is good design, I would be able to define what is good design.

  In that point, "How good is good?" doesn't suggest criteria of the good design. It only shows how bad design ruins our life, and how good design makes our life healthier. However, the essential idea of the essay gave a good point of view that just pretty eye-catching things could not be called good design.

  In this perspective, I established six criteria for good design. I will call it SFHEAD!

  1. Striking : good design has to carry strong message.

  2. Friendly : good design has to be friendly to users.

  3. Historical : good design has to have meaningful historical context.

  4. Economical : good design has to save resources and efficient.

  5. Aesthetic : good design has to be beautiful.

  6. Durable : good design has to be strong.


  In my thought, good design doesn't have to meet all criteria simultaneously (and it seems impossible). Rather than that, designer has to determine which criteria is most important among six criteria. Then he can start designing keeping in mind the concept of design.

  In this perspective, I chose monami pen for good design. Monami pen, which has been steady seller for long time ago, has strong points in durable, Economical, Friendly criteria. Also, they deliver the message to us that this pen is only concentrating on function itself! At that moment, this pen looks even aesthetic and this made monami pen obtain historical context by being sold steadily for about 30 years.

  However, obbadak calendar, which I chose for bad design, shows none of these criteria acquired properly. It is not aesthetic, and carries no message about their products! It is wholly covered by good-looking man which I cannot understand why this is related to fried chicken advertisement.